Property:Gloss-def
From Buddha-Nature
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The "lesser way," a term that appeared in conjunction with the Mahayana ("great way"). Though yāna is more properly "a way," it was translated into Tibetan as theg pa meaning "vehicle." Both terms originate in the Lotus Sutra, where carriages or vehicles are used as an analogy for the ways, and the Hīnayāna is said to be "lesser" in terms of its goal of individual liberation as opposed to the Mahayana aspiration to emancipate all beings from suffering. The Hīnayāna encompasses both the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha vehicles +
From the word for "treasure" gter, termas are discovered teachings, either practices concealed in the mind during a previous life or texts, artifacts, and substances discovered in physical form +
The word vajra refers to the "thunderbolt," the indestructible and irresistible weapon that first appears in Indian literature in the hand of the Vedic deity Indra. In Tibetan Buddhism, vajra is most often used as a modifier to indicate something related to the tantric path, as it symbolizes the swiftness and power of that path and the indestructibility of its animating reality, the dharmakāya +
Originally a part of Śaivite lore. These are the sacred places where various parts of Sati's body fell as Śiva carried it through the sky. With the defeat and adoption of Śivas body by Heruka, thus creating Cakrasamvara, he inherited all these sacred places, which play an important role in the Cakrasamvara literature and are also correlated with sites within the human body's network of channels and winds. +
The "Vajra Vehicle" is the path of tantra, and is synonomous with the Mantrayāna. Vārānasī. The oldest city of northeast India on the Gangetic plain, once the capital of its own small kingdom and known by various names. It was a religious center even during the time of the Buddha +
The Tibetan meaning is "commitment" but refers more accurately to the deity to which one has a commitment. The Sanskrit equivalent, istadeva or istadevatā, means "desired deity," emphasizing one's attraction to or choice of a deity +
Although prajñā is usually translated as wisdom, and jnāna is synonymous with it, prajñā-jñāna in the context of an empowerment is a reference to the consort, who is referred to as prajñā. This is the third empowerment, in which one gains wisdom through union with the consort +
The enlightened sambhogakāya identity in which the Buddha is said to have taught the tantras. In the Kagyü tradition he is also the personification of the dharmakāya, and the source from which the sambhogakāya deities manifest +
The Buddhas cousin, who became his attendant for the last twenty years of his life and eventually succeeded to the position of the head of the Buddhist tradition as its second patriarch, after the death of Mahākāśyapa +
An exalted sovereign with universal dominion. The name means "roller of a wheel." In the earliest sutras, cakravartins were mythical kings. On becoming king, they set a magical wheel rolling and wherever it went became their lands; for some it would roll throughout the world +
The term may denote "accomplishment" or the "method of accomplishment," which is the way it is translated into Tibetan. It can refer to any method of practice, usually of a deity, and by association it can mean the liturgical text used in the practice of meditation on a deity that describes the visualizations, mantras, offerings, prayers, and meditations to be performed +
The graduated levels of enlightenment that a bodhisattva passes through to attain buddhahood, most often enumerated as ten. They usually refer to the different levels of an enlightened bodhisattva, but they can also include the level of buddhahood and two levels that correspond to the paths of accumulation and engagement +
One of the four continents (see entry). The Tibetan translation means "unpleasant sound," referring to a myth that all the beings in Kuru live for a fixed age of a hundred years, at the end of which they hear the "unpleasant sound" of a voice announcing their imminent death +
Seventeen paradises into which beings are born through the power of meditation +
Literally, "sound," it is pure sound as an expression of ultimate truth or emptiness and is also symbolized by the attenuated flickering line rising from the anusvāra +
The six central practices of a bodhisattva on the Mahayana path: the perfections of generosity, good conduct, patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom. The Tibetan for pāramitā literally means "gone to the other shore" (pha rol tu phyin pa) +
"Circular gathering" is the original meaning, and in India a gaṇacakra was held in charnel grounds, with the consumption of the five meats and five nectars. In Tibet, general food and drink are blessed, and the participants, visualized as deities, consume them +
This is a traditional, convenient enumeration of the various schools of Buddhism prior to the advent of the Mahayana. However the lists for these schools vary considerably, so the number eighteen is unlikely to be exact. They all developed from the initial schism within Buddhism into the Mahāsaṅgika and the more conservative Sthaviravadins. Subsequent schools were often the result of localized development among the widely dispersed sanghas. The Mahayana was a development from within these varied schools +
The "further Dharma." This set of teachings attempts to give an analytic overview of the foundation and worldview of Buddhism. It is primarily concemed with the constituents of mental activity and their relationship to the process of attaining enlightenment but it also includes descriptions of cosmology and the constituents of the external world. In Tibet, the texts of Vasubandhu and Asaṅga form the basis for the study of Abhidharma +
This can mean simply "breath," but it never means "air" in general as vāyu can mean. It is associated with the principle of life and so was translated into Tibetan as "life air" This has been used as a back translation for rlung in general, though technically it is specifically one of the five principal winds +
